Wednesday, December 7

It's Dead Day at the UofA. Classes ended for the semester yesterday. Final exams begin tomorrow.

Last night was our annual Candlelight Christmas service. Jake typically puts it together for us and he always does a great job. Last night was no exception: He and Trevor played guitars "unplugged", five students shared from the Christmas story, communion. Afterwards, at least 20 of us made our annual walk up to the square to see the Christmas lights. It was a very special time - a good way to end the semester. Of course, there was the year that our worship minister decided that we needed to do a "stomp" Christmas service, using trash cans, lids, etc. as musical (?) instruments ...

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Dead Day also has its traditions. This morning we delivered Christmas presents to a day care that works with at-risk children from dysfunctional homes. We had 30-40 students combine to buy about $1000 worth of gifts for the 22 kids there. Over the past few years, we have also asked the fraternity next door to us to purchase gifts for the siblings of these kids. So they spend another $2000 for the 50 or so siblings.

This evening was our annual Guys' Dead Day at Monte Ne. Guys from ConC go to the Monte Ne Inn for an all-you-can-eat chicken dinner. Of course, there are the requisite "records" that go with this event. To set a Monte Ne record, one has to first eat a complete meal. The you can go for a record. Some records include:

Tonight, Lance set his third Monte Ne record with a huge, heaping serving bowl of mashed potatoes.

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Last weekend was the end of the high school football season. I got to spend most of Friday and Saturday in Little Rock with the Springdale team. On Friday, we took some of the seniors to play with kids at the Arkansas Children's Hospital. On Saturday night, they defeated West Memphis 54-20 to win the state title and finish the season 14-0. In between, there was a lot of good time with the team and the coaches - eating meals, watching football, and talking.

Currently, SHS is ranked #2 in the country in the poll Sports Illustrated posts and #5 in USA Today's poll. The teams ahead of them in both poll all have at least one more game to play, so it is possible for SHS to get to #1 in the SI poll and anywhere from #2-4 in USA Today.

And it keeps getting better: the SHS quarterback, Mitch Mustain, was named as the Gatorade National High School Player of the year. Mitch is a great QB, but I'm not even sure he was the best player on the team.

Finally, I came back from the game in LR with a black eye. One of the players has been harassing me about my age all season. So I told him that I didn't want to hurt him during the season, but that after the championship game, he and I would wrestle on the 50 yard line of War Memorial stadium. So we did. I pinned him in about 3 seconds, but his shoulder pads scraped my eye as I threw him to the ground.

2 comments:

Surgeon is at his best within the following quote. He speaks regarding the means during which God likes to bring folks to the terribly finish of themselves before taking hold of them and exploitation them for his glory:wrestling

About Me

I'm in my 32nd year of ministry to college students at the University of Arkansas and serve in various leadership roles from the local to national level. I blog a few times a week on leadership and spiritual formation - with other items of interest along the way. I invite you to subscribe and share your feedback. I have been married to Gina for 34 years and we have two grown and married daughters. I have also been a track and field official for over 20 years.